Of Many Moons and Traumas of One Remus Lupin
by sooperspicy386
Summary: The pranks that 11 year old James, Sirius and Peter played on Loopy Lupin were just for fun, really. Well, until Sirius takes it too far. Cute, short and sweet about how Remus became part of the group. Canon. One Shot.


Hey guys, I decided that I needed to get this story out that I've been thinking about for a couple of days. It's cute and sweet and short, and I hope you enjoy. Thanks to my AWESOME beta, MAKKY!

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Sirius Black had, initially, thought that Loopy Remus Lupin was completely absurd. He ate his breakfast by himself, spent most of his time in the library and never _ever_ went swimming. He didn't even like Quidditch. That was absolutely insulting to the Gryffindor namesake, and Sirius had always been offended by such opposition. Of course, his feelings were very much known by all of the Gryffindor House, if not the entire school, whenever Remus was around him. James was even starting to 'shh!' him when Sirius spoke too bluntly about Remus' oddness. James, of course, was a true Gryffindor but did not see the need to be overtly rude to a dorm mate (although he did partake in the humiliation of any other Houses). Peter, who had used osmosis to join the group by hanging around the two boys long enough, really was torn on the matter. Usually, Sirius and James agreed on things so it was easy to know which opinion to go with. Now, however, he found himself with quite the dilemma. Sirius, obviously the more talented and all around better person in general, could quite easily fight dirty against Peters' lack of support. James, however, was a decent friend and would probably just ignore Peters' opinion either way.

But that really wasn't the point.

The three boys, especially Sirius, did not like Remus during their first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry; therefore much could be assumed about the torment they put the poor boy through. Although they kept their pranking skills to a minimum, they were still able to make Remus' life pretty inconvenient. Switching around the covers of his text books, filling his four poster with itching powder and strategically placing Nose-Biting Tea Cups where he sat during random meals were just a few things off the list.

Strangely enough though, Remus just tended to ignore all of that. James concluded that Remus was getting as much of a laugh out of it as they were, but didn't really do anything about it. After all, this was all just in good fun anyway, right? Well, Sirius was of a different opinion. He became more and more frustrated with the lack of response from Remus; after all they were being so mean to him. Shouldn't he at least honor their efforts by seeming even a little upset? No. Instead, Remus just ignored it all and annoyingly went back to secluding himself from the world. It unnerved Sirius to the point of ridiculing Remus publically. James frowned upon that, but never really stopped Sirius from doing so.

The three boys were also too caught up in their attempt to emotionally hurt Remus for the sake of their differences to even care where he went each month. Although, Sirius had made it a point to ask in a snobby fashion why Remus got to leave and he didn't. Remus had answered that his mother was very ill which made Sirius inwardly feel a bit of pity for treating Remus so harshly but of course, that couldn't be shown. So instead he just scoffed.

Then came their Second Year and everything changed.

Sirius' pranking abilities had increased exponentially over the summer and what better way to let the whole school know about it than test them on Remus Lupin? The trio (well, perhaps not a trio seeing as it was mainly just James and Sirius with Peter just standing behind them, watching them work) now much more mature and respectable set to work on said prank. The time it took for them to lay the trap that would encase Remus at dinner that night did not take long; perhaps Remus noticed that the boys seemed to be too busy to bombard him with petty pranks, or perhaps he just assumed that they actually grew up over the summer. Either way, Remus did not expect the following events.

He sat at the far end of the table by himself as always, eating a few pieces of chicken. The Great Hall was filled with nearly every student at the school, which was quite a lot to the little first years that kept looking around, wide eyed and confused. Remus was picking up his fork, intent on delivering another piece of nourishment to his mouth, when all of a sudden his body jerked. He was pulled upwards, forcefully and suddenly. For a fraction of a second he thought that someone had pulled on the back of his robes forcing him to stand up, but he kept levitating higher and higher until he was high enough to see the tops of all the students' heads. The entire room came to a halt, but before anyone could react in the slightest, (Remus himself included) banners burst from the ceiling, hundreds of feet long, ten feet wide, with a message scrawled in red and gold ink 'LOOPY LUPIN'.

Minor fireworks went off here and there, but they couldn't be heard over the thunderous laughter from the Great Hall. It was at this point that Remus began to realize what was happening, because James could see the horror and humiliation etched deeply into his features. Immediately James turned to Sirius and exclaimed, "It was supposed to read 'Gryffindors', Flying Machines!" But Sirius was far too entertained at the moment to even process his friends' words, let alone hear the concern in them.

The teachers, of course, were trying desperately to calm the students down while Professor Flitwick lowered Remus down gently. The boy's face had turned from terror to plain panic. His eyes were wide, darting in every direction, his breathing increasing rapidly in speed. The second that his feet touched the ground, he stumbled. He steadied his feet to the best of his ability and without a word, sprinted out of the great hall, his face buried in the palm of his hands.

James noticed this, and was the first to leave. It might have seemed the noble thing to do, but James really just felt the guilt start the seep into his twelve year old body. It wasn't until he was out of the Great Hall that he realized he didn't know where Remus had gone. He looked left, then right, and then left again, until he decided that going left was the best choice. Or maybe right. No, definitely left. So he walked down the hallway until he noticed a bathroom on his right. Assuming that that was the only logical place to go, he went inside. His ears were met with a muffled sobbing from inside one of the cubicles. He suddenly felt very stupid, both in pulling the prank and in following Remus out there; after all, what was he planning on saying to Remus anyway? But he was here nonetheless and his little heart did not agree with the idea of turning around now.

"Loo- uh… Remus?" His voice, usually confident, was now unsure.

The sobbing came to a stifled halt. There was a long pause, as if Remus was trying to pretend that he wasn't there. It wasn't working.

"I know you're there."

A sniff. "P-P-Please, just leave me alone." The voice was so pleading that James momentarily stopped walking. But Remus had spoken enough for James to figure out which stall, specifically, he was in.

"It was just supposed to be a joke," James offered, shoving his hands in his pockets and staring at the ground. "It was supposed to say 'Gryffindor's flying machines' but I guess Sirius changed it last minute."

There was a very long and very uncomfortable pause, for James at least, who really wanted this to be over sooner rather than later. The seconds stretched longer still as James attempted to figure out what else he should say to mend the situation. But really, what could be said? It was slowly starting to dawn on him that Remus wasn't someone they should've been picking on in the first place. Snape, on the other hand, was fair game, which reminded him, weren't they planning something for him later next week? The git had been spending an awful lot amount of time with Lily, which was entirely unacceptable. Surely Lily would come around once she saw how brilliant and magnificent James was when he used an extremely complex 2nd year spell on Snape; but what to use? Between the three of them (Sirius, Peter and himself) they didn't have anyone who actually knew any spells ahead in the curriculum; that was inconvenient but—

"Why do you hate me so much?"

James, brought back to reality, brought his gaze back over to the stall. Remus. Right.

"I… don't."

More silence.

"Well, Black does, and you help him do stupid things."

"They were just petty pranks," James defended, trying to avoid the obvious blame that was placed equally on the both of them.

"My parents taught me that if I just ignore bullies, then they'll leave me alone. So I did. But you just won't stop will you?" James could hear the sorrow in Remus' voice slowly start to be replaced with anger. "You just had to keep 'pranking' me until you humiliated me in front of the e-entire school."

Before James could reply, the bathroom door opened and in strutted Sirius Black and his supposedly faithful half-baked sidekick, Peter Pettigrew.

"James!" Sirius exclaimed, arms casually across his torso in a casual yet authoritative fashion, "Why did you leave?"

James turned to his friend, eyes narrowed. "You weren't supposed to change the banner."

"What does it matter? We got a massive laugh out of it either way. Did you see the look on his face?" A smug grin crossed Sirius' handsome face as he thought back to their show. "Brilliant!"

"Shut up!" James nearly shouted at his best friend. "What you did was mean."

"What _I_ did?" Sirius raised an eyebrow starting to get a little angry. "I happen to remember a rather large amount of the work being done by someone other than myself. Stop acting like you've suddenly found something morally wrong with what we've been doing since day one!"

James let out a long breath before looking at the stall, which had grown very quiet. Sirius took notice of James's gaze and frowned.

"Is someone in there?" He bent over to see if there were any legs sprouting from the stall (in fact, there were two) and Sirius recognized the shabby trousers and scuffed shoes immediately. His frown deepened as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Fine, befriend the little Loony traitor."

"What has he ever done to us?"

Sirius looked at James incredulously, as if he had suddenly declared that he was switching to Slytherin. "What—I don't even—how-?" But really, the answer was nothing and Sirius knew that better than anyone. This confrontation made him uncomfortable, so he scoffed and rolled his eyes. "That's completely irrelevant!" Deciding that was a good enough line, he looked right at James with confidence again. "Look, I won't do that again. Next time I'll just experiment on Snape. Happy?"

The stall remained silent and Sirius rolled his eyes again. Then he did what he normally did when things weren't going his way; he turned on his heel and left with Peter tagging along behind him. James shifted uncomfortably, said a quick 'bye' to Remus and followed the other two out.

The three of them didn't see Remus again until much later on that evening when he entered the dorm room. No one would've guessed that James and Sirius had fought earlier that day, seeing as they were laughing at a joke Peter had just told (which elated him to the fullest extent), one lounging on his bed, the other upright. The laughter immediately ceased when Remus walked in, and it got quite awkward.

"Hey, Remus," James offered and Remus nodded uncomfortably in reply. He walked to his drawer, opened it up, removed some long sleeved pajamas, which Sirius always found to be incredibly odd, considering it quite warm, and then left to change in the bathroom. Sirius bit back the comment about how strange Remus was, as none of the boys had issues changing around each other and none of them were wearing long-sleeved pajamas.

When Remus came back out, Sirius was munching happily on a piece of Honeyduke's finest chocolate. He noticed Remus glance at it almost longingly and he took another bite. After a few moments of very careful consideration, he broke off a piece.

"Do you want some?" He held out the piece, which Remus now looked at suspiciously. After considering the offer for a moment, Remus carefully took the piece muttering a small 'thanks', and then let a weak smile grace his features. "I've got another bar, if you want, for when you go visit your mother later on this week." Sirius wasn't at all stupid or heartless; he was actually quite observant when specific patterns like such were presented to him. Perhaps he was being too forced in his friendliness, but James had spoken to him earlier and he agreed to stop pranking Remus altogether and make an effort to be nice to him, as difficult as that might be.

Remus looked a little confused, but his smile spread wider on his face and Sirius reached under his bed and grabbed the other bar. He tossed it high up and Remus reached up to catch it. However, his sleeve rode up in the process, revealing an alarming amount of scars and the numbers '38683' tattooed in something shiny on his forearm.

Remus' facial expression was quite similar to that of what he wore when hoisted above the students in the Great Hall. He hastily pulled his sleeve down and hugged his arm to his chest, eyes wide. The other boys stared at him, utterly confused.

"What-?"

"Nothing, it's nothing," Remus insisted, turning his body from view.

"No, it's not 'nothing.' Your arm!" James walked over to him, a million different cogs working in his head. That was one of the most distinctive features of an undesirable, a tattooed number. James couldn't believe it, what could possibly be so wrong with Remus?

But Sirius was a quick boy who had already strung all the pieces of evidence that he hadn't known were there. The scars must cover his entire body, he didn't use silver sickles, he was always away during the full moon, and his eyes were amber like a wolf.

"Werewolf." Sirius whispered, not an accusation, but a fact.

And at that word, Remus crumpled once again. He stumbled over to his drawers, shaking, and started piling the clothes out of them. The other boys, still in complete shock, just stared at him as they digested the information. Everything made so much sense now. Sirius was the first to recover, as a slow excited grin spread across his face, but it was Peter who spoke first, oddly.

"What are you doing?" He asked, almost breathlessly from the realization.

"Packing m-my things," he choked, his tone suggesting like it was the most obvious thing in the world, continuing to dump things on the floor.

Peter frowned in confusion. The shock was the same for him as everyone else, but his mom's friend was a werewolf, and she was a nice lady just the same. "Why?"

Remus, very confused, almost turned to look at him, but resisted and instead continued his work.

Sirius was the second to speak. "Yeah… why? You… You don't have to leave." Sirius was grinning almost happily now.

Remus turned to him and frowned, still very much scared and the grin on Sirius' face scaring him a little more. But before he had a chance to speak, James opened his mouth.

"Remus, we aren't… We aren't like that." He said, exchanging a confident look with Sirius. "We won't, you know, tell anyone, or think, er, differently." Two awkward confrontations in one day; James really needed to rethink his schedule. But it was the truth, and he didn't want Remus to leave. Nor did Peter nor Sirius.

Remus looked uncertain as he stared from Peter to Sirius to James, daring to hold eye contact with James. "Really?" he asked nervously, his eyes flickering briefly to Sirius who looked like Christmas had come early. The three of them nodded back, but Remus kept staring uncertainly at Sirius. Confused, Sirius tried to work out why Remus looked so scared, before he realized that it was probably because he was grinning like a maniac.

"Oh, I promise, I'm not going to tell or anything." A spark entered Sirius' eye. "I just think it's kinda cool." Before anyone else could get too uncomfortable with the whole ordeal, Sirius did the second thing that he did best: distracted everyone.

"Remus, how about we show you the secret passageway to the kitchens? I'm starving, how about everyone else?"

They all agreed, anxious to get off the topic. And as Remus huddled with the three of them under the invisibility cloak, he smiled. This must be what it's like to have friends.

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